everyone: oh look at my shiny computer it's so thin I can put it in my backpack and go to whynot2028 with it in 2025!
me: *still using a 15 year old laptop in 2025*

I miss laptops that last

@fun My back... doesn't. I used to carry an Acer 5530G (+power brick, so 4,5kg) back in school (and later T420 - 2,2kg).

My back never forgave me for this. These days I carry my work laptop with me (Framework 16 - 2,2kg), but when I went to Japan I packed only KOHAKU (Samsung Galaxy Chromebook) which weights exactly 1kg.

I have to say thought that having workstation-grade hardware with me no matter where I am is a huge benefit though. I can just whip out a USB-C charger, plug it into the wall and code/compile without worrying about unstable internet connection. I should get an OcuLink expansion card so I can hook up PCIe devices to it without messing with thunderbolt (Gen4 x8).

@fun I just want more modular fully repairable/upgradeable device. Granted, I also just moved back to a desktop as my primary machine, so upgrade ability is back on the cards for me. But I very much understand that I am in a minority and most people choose mobile devices now as their one and only device for cost and convenience. It is also why postmarketOS is so important. We not only need our hardware to last longer but our software support as well. ❤️

@elly seeing the backpacks that kids carry to school today makes me weep for their future spine. In this digital age, I cannot believe kids need to take so much to and from school. @fun

@fun Root cause: Capitalism and price pressure. Most people want cheaper laptops so they made them, same with most appliances. But Capitalism is served best by this as well in obsolescence.

@justin @fun When I was going to school, even just textbooks were so heavy that actual adults had trouble lifting them. Not to mention that we don't have lockers at schools in Europe, so you carry that everyday for ~13 years of your life

@elly @fun OUCH!

@elly @fun @justin That was probably the #1 thing I hated about school in Poland - having to carry backpacks filled to the brim with heavy textbooks.

And I have the full right to whine about this, because that has undeniably contributed to my back problems several years ago

@elly @fun @justin even though i've (mostly) recovered from that through physiotherapy, i hate how easily preventable this could've been

@elly @justin @fun really depends on school, if they had just coat racks or actual lockers (experienced both in PL)

@nullenvk I can't say my back problems were partly caused by my backpack as a child, but I wouldn't be surprised. @fun @elly

@fun how do you get a laptop so thin it time travels 3 years into the future?

@elly @fun @justin Does not having lockers mean that you had to carry everything between classrooms? My school has lockers and gives them on request (plus everyone has a tray for books), but most people don't have one and just leave their bags lying around (I do use my locker, because I worry about the possibility of theft or evil maid attacks). I probably carry more than most people at my school because I bring my own laptop (Dell Latitude E6400, ~3kg with charger) rather than use locked down school chromebooks with censored and monitored internet access, but at least I don't have to carry it that far.

@elly @fun i can relate to you carrying heavy laptops to school (altho most of my schoolyears it was an X61, so fairly light), but the thing that destroyed my back was carrying all those fscking books we never used

by the time I dropped out of high school i’d carry my math book, math notebook, some generic paper to write on, my pencil case and my laptop, because everything else I managed to coerce into having digitally. and damn, I made notes with ASCII drawing characters, because the class was slow enough at writing that I had time to spare… probably the most legible lesson notes i’ve ever written

@noisytoot Yes. We also did not have benches to wait in front of classes, so common sight was to see classes sitting in front of the doors on the concrete, using their backpacks as padding between the wall and their backs

@elly @noisytoot wow, that's far more common than I thought, lol

@elly I don't carry around my computer at all times thankfully. But I think one could make a laptop that's repairable, while still not being too heavy

@elly FWIW my laptop is extremely thick and extremely bulky, but I had to carry way more before

@noisytoot by making it 6d instead of 3d

Ok to be clear what I want and expect from a good laptop:

- CPU: replaceable
- GPU: replaceable
- (important) RAM: replaceable
- Hinges: not so fragile they break after 3 years
- keyboard: replaceable easily, and solid
- screen: at least 1080p, at most 1440p, replaceable
- (optionally) cd/dvd drive (yes I still use CDs and DVDs in 2025)
- not too thick, but wouldn't mind too much
- reasonable weight, I still want my back for a few more years
- doesn't explicitly lock you out
- decent mainline linux support

Basically I want something reliable for many years to come, so I don't have to buy a new laptop every 2 years or something .. money isn't infinite, and earth resources also aren't either

@elly Did you often have to wait long? We don't have benches, but we only have to wait outside classrooms if they're locked (which general-purpose classrooms are not, but those with special equipment are) and the teacher is late

my next laptop should preferably be aarch64 btw, or maybe loongarch64 if that's available. I don't want to mess with x86_64 anymore.

@elly > I have to say thought that having workstation-grade hardware with me no matter where I am is a huge benefit though. I can just whip out a USB-C charger, plug it into the wall and code/compile without worrying about unstable internet connection. I should get an OcuLink expansion card so I can hook up PCIe devices to it without messing with thunderbolt (Gen4 x8).

this is where laptops really shine IMO, I can plug it in to my 2-3 monitors and use it as a desktop computer, and then when I need to go outside I can take my laptop with me along with its charger and just use it that way too.

A long while ago I used to have a desktop *and* a laptop, but then I realized I'm terrible at managing multiple computers so I went back to one laptop. And that's nice, also because I can just start something at home and then take my laptop and get back to where I was.

and I forgot:

- replaceable SSD (M.2 or SATA)

@fun the framework 16 comes pretty close. No replacement CPUs, but other than that it's what you're looking for I think!

@hp I think it's an x86_64 laptop and also I'm not sure about its coreboot/open firmware support (though I'll admit I haven't mentioned that)

but yeah, seems quite close to what I want. @elly I know you have one, what's your experience with it? (also to you, if you have one)

@fun
#mntreform might be your only solution then 😇

@pocketvj MNT Reform is definitely on my radar :D

@fun @elly coreboot/of is a bit of a problem currently at least until AMD makes ASEGA open source again.

They said they would, we can hope I guess...

But yeah there's not much right now with entirely free firmware. Power9 is probably the fastest you can get, but no laptops. And you wouldn't want the laptop if they made it, probably.

@hp @elly I'd absolutely love free firmware, but seeing how rare that is it's more of a "nice to have" than a "requirement", so to speak

@fun ThinkPad T440p satisfies all criteria (except possibly thickness and weight, it depends on what you compare it to, and my left shift key fell off but I don't know how common that is)

@noisytoot T440p is about as old as my computer

@fun @hp Frankly I would agree that FW16 would suit your needs best in this case.

- CPU: Can't replace (can't think of a single laptop made in the past decade that had socketed CPU), but you can swap the mainboard with a newer version so I consider this a win.
- GPU: You can remove dGPU and replace it with 2x M.2 modules, OcuLink (or other community-made modules), or swap/upgrade (current options are RX7700S and RTX5070 I think, for my needs iGPU is plenty fast).
- RAM: Of course, upgradeable. You get 2x DDR5 SO-DIMM.
- Hinges: Seem pretty strong, no issues after a year of use. Even if they would break though, you could buy replacement parts from the manufacturer.
- Keyboard: You can replace it by sliding two plastic tabs, pulling the touchpad assembly and lifting it out. There are multiple options available, and you can even build your own.
- Screen: 2560x1600 16:10. Absolutely awesome, but I wish there was an OLED option.
- CD/DVD: Yeeeeah, no. You would need to order a Panasonic Let's Note from Japan to get that in the laptop these days.
- It's pretty chonk, but fits inside a Dell backpack I got when I worked for my previous employer. Thiccness isn't a problem though.
- Weight is okay, especially if you're used to ancient laptops. I mean, good performance has some compromises after all.
- It doesn't. AFAIK, PSB is disabled on FW16, ChromeEC fork is public on Framework's GitHub. AMD finally woke up and is planning to publish Phoenix OpenSIL by the end of the year (although it's a POC, so no power management and no official support from AMD whatsoever). Still, things are moving towards better support for AMD SoCs in coreboot fairly quick these days.
- Yeah, it mostly just works OOTB. I had to write some scripts to fix power management and other quirks because InsydeH2O firmware is garbage and it can't even do that on it's own (outrageous that ASPM on NVME and WiFi is disabled OOTB, it destroys battery life).

Bonus to that: It looks like Framework's employees might be stalking fedi.
- Month after I complained about thermals, Framework started offering PTM7950 to everyone who bought FW16.
- Two weeks after I shitposted about it waking up in my backpack and cooking itself, they announced keyboard firmware upgrade which is supposedly fixing that problem.

I still wouldn't recommend going with Phoenix (1st gen FW16) due to issues with AMD's USB controller. Sometimes my USB just randomly dies, and it's not a problem with Framework itself.
Thanks to that I now have beautiful script in `/usr/local/bin` called `unfuck_usb.sh`, which completely resets the USB subsystem (but since keyboard is connected over USB, I need to SSH into it and run it that way).

@elly @hp FW16 goes in my list of promising successors to my old HP elitebook

@elly @hp along with MNT Reform

@elly @hp Now to address the things I asked that the FW16 doesn't have:

> - CD/DVD: Yeeeeah, no. You would need to order a Panasonic Let's Note from Japan to get that in the laptop these days.

I guess ... I do have an external cd/dvd drive from last decade that still works

> - Screen: 2560x1600 16:10. Absolutely awesome, but I wish there was an OLED option.

I did say max 1440p, but if it's 16:10 that's even better :D

> - RAM: Of course, upgradeable. You get 2x DDR5 SO-DIMM.

"woah ddr5 is a thing now??"

> I still wouldn't recommend going with Phoenix (1st gen FW16) due to issues with AMD's USB controller. Sometimes my USB just randomly dies, and it's not a problem with Framework itself.

Ah...... I remember someone mentioning USB issues with AMD especially when flashing amlogic stuff .. :/ will see

> - Keyboard: You can replace it by sliding two plastic tabs, pulling the touchpad assembly and lifting it out. There are multiple options available, and you can even build your own.

a dream come true (like on the mnt reform as well!)

> - GPU: You can remove dGPU and replace it with 2x M.2 modules, OcuLink (or other community-made modules), or swap/upgrade (current options are RX7700S and RTX5070 I think, for my needs iGPU is plenty fast).

Regarding the gpu I think I might just use the iGPU .. my current laptop has an nvidia card and frankly I hate it

> - CPU: Can't replace (can't think of a single laptop made in the past decade that had socketed CPU), but you can swap the mainboard with a newer version so I consider this a win.

my laptop which was manufactured in 2011 has a socketed CPU, but yeah I agree this is quite rare in the laptop world, even back then it wasn't very common

@noisytoot IMO there's no point for me in buying a computer that's as old as my current one, I may as well just keep using it (and I will, until it fully dies)

@elly @hp anyway, thank you so much for these recommendations :) hopefully they still exist after a few more years (I want to keep using my current laptop until it dies, if possible, I don't like ewaste)

@fun @elly i hope so too! My current laptop is from 2022 so I really have no need to update either. If I did I'd buy one of those I think.

I have a hp g10 250, it fell on me a hundred times hinges are fine
Ram is replacable up to 32gigs
Has amazing Linux support can even come out of the box with linux
Screen is easy to replace and 1080p
Battery lasts me about 10hours if I'm just messing around with text documents otherwise it's about 3-4 hours